This blog is intended to be insight into my life as an irrational, stats-driven, obsessive sports fan in Boston. I am a fan of all types of sports with an emphasis on Boston teams and am a proud UConn alum.

In Tuesday’s Boston Globe, Stan Grossfeld published an interview with Red Sox starting pitcher David Price that has the Boston media market buzzing. The entire purpose of this interview is to ride in the car with Price as he heads to the ballpark in the morning during spring training. The first several questions tell you exactly what the interview is supposed to be: a puff-piece. A quick, easy, get-to-know David Price interview. It starts with questions about karma, bringing coffee to the training staff, and of course, about Price’s dog Astro. Ironically, the question that started to turn the interview dark was “What is your passion?”

A harmless, bullshit question that had an easy answer, “I have a foundation, Project One Four.” It makes total sense, a chance to promote his charity work and talk about what the charity means to him. Simple. What’s the next sentence out of his mouth? “That’s one of the things that honestly chafed me about being in Boston – with the reporters, not one time did anybody take the time to get to know me or my foundation or anything I do away from the field.” What? Really? You’re that self-centered? Oh here we go…

As my father-in-law said when he read the article, “I liked the first half, then the whole tone changed.” It was as if Price was just waiting for the perfect time to start shitting on Boston. When is he going to fucking realize he is getting paid $30 million to PITCH in the MAJOR LEAGUES. He’s not getting paid to be the Executive Director or Director of Marketing for his charity, he’s paid to PITCH. If he wants to promote his charity, he can just hop on the Twitter-machine he’s so fond of and type until his little heart’s content. Practically every freaking MLB player has a charity that they either created or play a significant role in, it’s not unique, and no David, you are not special. You do your job and the reporters will do their job: report on baseball.

Sadly, then shit got real…

Grossfeld asked another ridiculously benign question, “Tell me something about you that people don’t know. Surprise me.” Price’s response, “People in Boston don’t know anything about me. The only thing I have to do is pitch good. People don’t care about what I do or the type of person that I am. That doesn’t matter.” Overlooking the glaring grammatical mistakes, let’s dig in a bit, shall we? YOU GET PAID $30 MILLION A YEAR TO PITCH. Baseball is entertainment and Price is privileged enough to get paid more in one year than our entire extended families will ever even see in our combined lifetimes. And I know I’m a broken record here, but YOU GET PAID $30 MILLION TO THROW A FUCKING BASEBALL.

I feel the need to respond to Price directly, so here it is: If you want people to care about you as a person, David, shut your fucking mouth and perform. Get your ass off twitter and stop being a egocentric dick at every turn. Do you want to know why fans love former players like Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield? They shut their damn mouths and performed. They worked their asses off day in and day out to get better and be the best team players they could. They didn’t fuck around on twitter and shit on Boston to the media. How many Red Sox fans could tell you Jason Varitek’s wife’s name? His kids names? His dog(s) names? Hell, I don’t even know if Tek has a dog and frankly, I don’t give a shit. Why? Because he was paid to play baseball.

The interview just continued to unravel and got worse, but frankly, I’m done. I was in support of the Price contract when he came to Boston. The Red Sox were in need of stability in the starting rotation and he had a track-record of being a workhorse who toed the rubber every 5 days and ate innings. Yes, he had some baggage (*cough* postseason record *cough*), but who doesn’t? if you go out and perform, especially in Boston, no one cares about the other crap (i.e. Manny Ramirez).

I’m going to end with this; a reminder to Price. You were a free agent and signed with Boston, no one forced you to be here. You chased the money into a large media market, a decision of your own free-will, now you have to deal with that decision. For the love of all things good, just shut your fucking mouth and pitch.

1 Comment

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Nicely written Brian. This guy needs to wake-up and look at some of the star players from past RedSox teams. (Wakefield is a great example, as you mentioned as well as Ortiz. Besides baseball, look at all the great work they did for their charities and it became known because of how they performed and dealt with the media.)